


Tenderness of Heart

by PinkLady80



Series: Dearly Beloved [2]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Auston Plays in the NHL, F/F, IRL Family - Freeform, Mitch doesn’t, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Rule63!Auston, Rule63!Mitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 08:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20079469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkLady80/pseuds/PinkLady80
Summary: Mitch Marner is the person Auston Matthews wants to come home to.A scene from Auston’s POV in the same universe as “For Dearest You Will Always Be”.





	Tenderness of Heart

Auston feels like she’s ready to snap. The game against Ottawa had been laughable, she’d been slammed into the boards by Brady Tkachuk, who still hasn’t learned she won’t sink to his level, followed by inane questions from the media after the game. Her body is stiff and sore, her pride is wounded, and she feels deprived of her best support because Mitch is off being a bridesmaid in a cousin’s wedding.

She says her piece to the team and takes John out for a drink. He’s a great friend, understanding when she needs to talk and when she just wants to sip her scotch in peace. 

John leaves after one and Auston gives serious thought to texting her Sure Thing. Cate is an equally busy woman and equally disinterested in taking their relationship beyond the physical. 

When she turns her phone on, there are the usual messages from Alex, B, and Mama plus various followers offering condolences. There are also dozens of notifications because the cousin must have paid someone to tag every Marner in the GTA on every photo and video of the wedding. 

Auston looks through all the photos; she loves weddings. There are several of Mitch dancing with and talking to various people at the reception, Auston recognizes some of them as family, and a 15-minute video labeled “Wedding Dance-Off”. Mitch always claimed that Marners are unflappable and unstoppable on the dance floor and Auston almost snorts scotch up her nose as family members young and old line up to shimmy and shake their way through the biggest dance hits of the past 60 years.

She’s suddenly transported back to that Sunday evening and her first glimpse of a pretty girl in a Varsity Blues tee completing a ridiculous celly with some her teammates after a strike. Auston remembers all her confidence vanishing in the face of blue eyes and a big smile and getting just enough of it back to ask for Mitch’s social media handles as she was packing up the extra French-fries to catch the subway back to campus.

Auston has never really had friends who are girls, a consequence of playing with boys her entire hockey career, and the first time they had met up after several weeks of texting, she felt wrong-footed.

What were they supposed to talk about? Alex and B talked about clothes and cute boys with their friends. Auston knows fashion, what she likes and what looks good on her (She hopes someday Mama’s pictures from Auston’s time in the Swiss Men’s League somehow magically disappear because they’re testament to her fashion growing-pains.). As for boys, Auston is a lesbian and besides, she’s all shoulders, no breasts or hips, why would she want to date someone built like her?

Mitch had saved Auston from herself, ditching her coat and coming in for a hug, continuing their conversation about the most awkward thing they’ve heard through thin hotel walls, before moving on to cute animal videos and then schooling her on women’s hockey when Auston admitted she didn’t really pay attention.

Mitch could only stay an hour, she had a study-group, but that short meeting was the ice breaker, their friendship spooling out. There’s an adjustment period when Auston discovers just how different their hockey is. Mitch’s games are in the early mornings and sparsely attended. Her curfew is earlier too; in the hotel room before nine and asleep by ten. Auston spends some evenings at home playing video games while Skyping Mitch who is doing homework in her hotel room. 

They had talked about it means to captain a hockey team when she had helped Mitch move from her post-university apartment to her tiny house in Brampton, the summer before Kyle gave Auston the C.

Auston admired the way Mitch lead her team, she had always been the first skater on and the last off. On the bench, she would tap her stick against someone to acknowledge their hard work, and move up and down the bench with an iPad.

Mitch once called Auston a hockey unicorn, a woman too tall and too good to be denied. Baring concussion or other horrible injury, Auston will have a long career she hopes will be the envy of other NHL players. Other women aren’t so lucky and every year, the beginning of the hockey season meant the beginning of the end for some of Mitch’s teammates. For Mitch, knowledge of this unnatural end was one of hardest thing to address.

Being friends with Mitch isn’t all hockey. She’s one of the most affectionate people Auston knows. She tells Auston when she needs a hug or requests Auston come over as soon as their schedules mesh so they can binge Netflix. Auston doesn’t understand how another human being can have such pointy elbows, but Mitch talks with her hands and is a snuggler, so the chance of Auston getting jabbed is high.

Being friends with Mitch means getting a video one off-season of a dirty kitten with a broken mew and the message “She was outside my building, I think she looks like a Mabel.” Auston had sent Mitch an “It’s A Girl!” balloon bouquet and had dutifully passed on her sisters’ requests for more pictures. These days, Mabel Marner still has the broken mew, but she’s an affectionate giant who always greets Auston with a head-bonk and doesn’t give anyone privacy in the bathroom.

Mitch is Auston’s favorite person to take to the NHL Awards. The first time Auston invited her, Mitch had gone through a bad breakup and spent all of the March break drinking hot chocolate (Mama is a big believer in the healing power of hot chocolate and Auston had been desperate to provide comfort) and impersonating a sniffly blanket-burrito in various locations around Auston’s condo.

She had just tossed the idea out, if Mitch comes with her Britney Spears is still in residence and Auston could get them tickets (There’s a lot of Britney played in Mitch’s locker room. Auston knows this because she’s waited outside the locker room with Mitch’s mom after games.).

She’d booked a posh suite with a private elevator and 24-hour butler service just because she could and left Mitch to lounge in the in-suite pool one afternoon while she golfed with friends. After the awards, they ditched the after-party to play nickel slots in evening wear and Mitch ordered mock-tails with ridiculous names.

The night of the concert, she made Auston carry her back to their hotel claiming her 4-inch heels made her feet hurt. Auston had done it, Mitch barely clears 160cm and Auston dwarfs her at 186cm, soaking up Mitch’s excitement and the feeling of her arms wrapped around her neck.

That weekend had felt like a bubble where time had stopped and if Auston had kissed her there wouldn’t have been any repercussions.

If the later wedding posts remind Auston of the past, she hopes the earlier ones foretell the future. Mitch’s older brother has two young daughters and she loves being the dotting auntie; Auston has often shown up at Mitch’s house, only to find that she’s interrupting a tea-party or story-time (Once she’d arrived to find a naked toddler laughing as her aunt chased her around the house.). The photographer captured Mitch holding their hands as they look over a tray of appetizers held by a smiling man in a tailcoat and it’s a microcosm of everything Auston wants. It’s too easy to imagine herself as the photographer and that the girls are theirs.

She’d talked about her feelings with Mama one off-season and confessed how conflicted she feels when Mitch has a girlfriend. Mitch loves being part of a couple and the women she dates are smart and kind. Chloe the humanities major, Lydia the children’s librarian who always wore plaid shirts, and Sam the chocolatier were exactly the type of people Mitch deserves. Instead, all Auston feels is a dark sense of jealousy.

It wasn’t Mitch’s fault she doesn’t love Auston back; Auston’s feelings are Auston’s problem and she’d worked hard to keep them separate from her friendship. She can’t loose the best friend she’s ever had. There wasn’t anything Mama could have said to make Auston feel better, but she had squeezed her hand, telling Auston how much she loved her.

Auston’s domestic self-reflection ends when she runs across a photo of Mitch and her immediate family. She has complicated feelings about Mitch’s parents. Bonnie always showed up at Mitch’s games with a rotating assortment of other family members and she seamlessly welcomed Auston into their group. Mitch is clearly her daughter, they have the same warm, chatty personality and big smile.

Paul Marner embodies the type of fan Auston hates. He’s a toxic armchair general-manager with a few low-level connections in the Toronto sports media who’s not afraid to share his opinions. He still has ideas about his daughter not pushing for the NHL after graduation. 

Auston would like to launch Mitch’s dad into the sun. Instead, she maintains a politeness Mama would be proud of because Mitch’s relationship with her dad is complicated enough.

By now, Auston’s agitation has morphed into hollow loneliness. Fortunately, it’s the kind that can be ignored with sex. She’s about to hit “Send” on a text to Cate, when another comes in.

_If I bribe you with cake from Bobbette and Belle, can I crash at yours?_

When she gets home, Auston finds Mitch standing on a kitchen chair, looking for her electronic kettle. Mitch flicks her fingers at the wide brim of Auston’s hat in greeting and she bares her teeth in response. The tin of loose-leaf tea sits next to a plastic container holding the promised cake. Auston methodically works her way through each slice, vanilla and lemon, while Mitch happily inhales half the frosting. 

The hiss of the kettle mixed with the soft, wispy swish of Mitch’s dress and the click of her heels blends into a soothing white noise. The smell of mint fills the air as Mitch presses her shoulder into Auston’s arm. Her mug reads “Dance Like No One is Watching”.

Suddenly, Auston’s body is moving without her brain’s permission and she’s putting Mitch’s mug on the counter before sweeping her up in something that wants to be the Waltz. She’s a horrible dancer but Mitch took a dance class to satisfy her degree requirements, she still takes the odd class for fun, and gets them sorted out. 

Mitch is laughing at her but Auston doesn’t care, just allows herself to be lead around the kitchen.

Auston wants more moments like this. She wants to hold Mitch close in the middle of the night and when she slams the front door, all her feathers ruffled because of hospital politics or a parent who doesn’t think their child needs help. She wants to visit Mitch at the hospital and bring her lunch, press one of her hands between both of Auston’s.

Mitch Marner is the person Auston Matthews wants to come home to.

She doesn’t know how to ask for it.

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are my own.


End file.
